Justice Souter addresses judge's role in society
PHILADELPHIA -- In his first public appearance since announcing his retirement, Supreme Court Justice David Souter on Tuesday spoke philosophically about a judge's place in society and how quickly one may fade into history.
"For most of us, the very best work that we do sinks into the stream very quickly," he said in a 15-minute address to the Third Circuit Judicial Conference. "We have to find satisfaction in being part of the great stream."
Souter, 69, was, by turns, emotional and wry.
Souter, the justice who oversees emergency appeals from the circuit covering Pennsylvania, New Jersey and Delaware, noted that he has been coming to the circuit's annual judicial conferences for almost two decades. "I didn't intend for (Tuesday's appearance) to be a sort of farewell conference," he said. And then referring to the fact that he believed his decision to retire this summer would have stayed under wraps longer, said to laughter, "I swear to you I was not the source of the leak."
Souter, a 1990 appointee of President George H.W. Bush who had told friends he was intending to retire, made it official when that news became public Thursday night. Souter called President Obama midday Friday.
Afterward, Obama said at a news conference, "He came to the bench with no particular ideology. He never sought to promote a political agenda. And he consistently defied labels and rejected absolutes, focusing instead on just one task — reaching a just result in the case that was before him.
"He approached judging as he approaches life," Obama continued, "with a feverish work ethic and good sense of humor, with integrity."
In Tuesday's luncheon speech at a Hyatt Regency ballroom here, Souter said, "It's impossible not to be doing a mental reckoning of sorts."
The erudite justice — who recently said that when the court term starts each year, "I undergo an annual intellectual lobotomy" — then proceeded to invoke great writers and judges, such as Learned Hand, on one's contribution to society.
